


Linger, Let Me Linger

by captainkilly



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Civil Wars In the Kastle Week, F/M, [day six: disarm]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 20:38:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10839009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: Not everything burns the way you want it to.





	Linger, Let Me Linger

**Author's Note:**

> This is not what I pictured writing as a companion piece to the song Disarm, but it's all that would stream out onto the page with any semblance of coherency. I believe this to be born of entirely too much time spent listening to both The Civil Wars and The Handsome Family -- a time I think is a gift in this small piece of Kastle.

The space around him is a sickly yellow, void of sunshine's warmth. It encroaches on every inch of skin he offers to the air. The hairs on his arms rise up to greet the dust that settles around his invasion. Goosebumps follow shortly after, registering the cold loss that permeates the room. His gut ripples with the slow crawl of wrongness. Everything in this space feels wrong. He is not supposed to be here.

He takes a breath to steady himself. Then, another. Squares his shoulders as though he's preparing for a fight. Squaring up for a blow. This entire room feels like a punch to the gut.

It should have burned.

He watched it _burn_ , goddamnit. He watched it turn golden yellow and brightest red as the flicker of a flame met with gasoline. He watched the pictures on the mantlepiece fold and crumble to the onslaught of his pain. He watched the dinosaurs tremble and fall off the table. Watched the curtains she'd made herself go up in the fire last, as though they were holding out to say one more thing to him. One more word. One more roll and tumble of the tongue around his name, hugged to her chest just as tightly as she'd first sewn the fabric together. One more caress.

He thinks Maria alive every night.

His cheeks are wet with tears every morning. He sees this fucking room every night. Every night until he thinks he needs to hold a lighter to his own head to burn the memory out. Every night until he is convinced that ghosts don't haunt buildings half as well as they haunt the living. Every night until he sits on the edge of his bed with a blade in his hand thinking that this may just be how it ends after all. He draws his own blood with the flick of a wrist and the edge of the blade. Retracts it again seconds later. Retracts out of sheer, unadulterated spite.

He gets back up again every morning.

*****

She doesn't remind him of Maria.

Red begs to differ, of course, as the Devil never agrees with him on much of anything to begin with. The man's never said a word about it. Never once, not even when the newspaper ran a picture of Maria that made his skin catch aflame with the memory of sunbeams floating through her hair. Red doesn't really need to say it. Frank can feel the man's glare, even when the mask remains impassive. He knows the Devil's clipped tones too well by now to mistake them for anything other than a neon sign that spells out _danger_. He shakes his head and ignores it best he can. Tells the Devil he ain't interested in having him be the angel on the Punisher's shoulder. Snorts out half a laugh as he says it, knowing that the man standing before him is just one push away from the wrong side of the line.

He _knows_ it's the wrong side of the line. There ain't no coming back from that. Ain't a damn thing he can do about it either.

Maria wouldn't recognise him.

Sure, she knew the man who carried war around on his shoulders. She knew the smell of gunpowder and the open skies as much as any military wife does. She never asked outright. Hid her worry behind a kiss and a fight that always entangled him in her bedsheets by the end of it. Hid her steel beneath the thin veneer of motherhood, spewing forth unsolicited advice and children's games as easy as she rattled him with every smile she threw his way. The newspaper had mentioned her charity and need to give back to people less fortunate than she. He's still convinced she would've made a pacifist out of him. Would've washed away the war the way her fingers combed through his hair every morning as she drew him in for a kiss. Would've cleared away the sand that had settled in his boots with nothing but a look and singular touch. War always fell away with her. The fight didn't matter in her arms. The fighter's coil unfurled underneath the tickle of her hair on his skin.

He can't tell Red _any_ of that. He can't find the words with which to say that what he lost isn't the same as what he found. Isn't even close at all, no matter how the sunlight streams over her face and her voice catches on the syllables of his name. Red doesn't register the steel trap of the woman's eyes, doesn't see the way her hands clench and curl around a coffee mug the way others curl around a weapon, doesn't know how to identify her kind of warfare until it will be too late to make things right. He lets the man be. Memories are treacherous weapons to wield.

Frank Castle is not a cruel man, after all.

*****

Karen Page is twenty different sides of vicious on a good morning. On a bad morning like this, he thinks that it may be closer to two hundred.

Her fingers are curled around her thermos as though it's a weapon she can aim at his jugular without warning. There is a set to her jaw that is part-stubbornness and part-uncertainty, though she clamps down on the latter so hard that he sees no trace of it in the icy glare of her eyes. He tries not to meet those. Keeps his head down as much as he dares. Focuses on the calloused skin between her thumb and index finger. Absentmindedly rubs the calloused skin in that same part of his own body.

"You've been practicing," he notes, nodding down at the small cut on the base of her thumb. "Still on that .380?"

"Among other things." Her reply is carefully neutral. Her tone positively frosty. "You don't get cuts from small guns. You should know that."

He knows better than to tell her she doesn't need to use them. Knows better than to discourage her practicing them until she can take them apart and reload them almost as fast as he can. Knows it's a futile attempt designed to keep her safe and docile. He ain't Red. He ain't any one of her friends. So, he pauses for a moment. Weighs her the way he always has. Thinks back on the Egyptians using a feather with which to measure the weight of a soul. He's not sure, but he thinks hers is too heavy to soar by far. Heavy like his own. So, he speaks.

"Parker is getting antsy from your questioning. He knows you swung by at the main office. That wasn't a worry for him. But then you swung by the docks."

"Only once."

"Once is enough when you're one of them shining reporters, ma'am."

"Hardly shining. Just getting by." She doesn't defrost on him this time around. Doesn't plead for anything. "I can handle him."

"I know."

"Then what's the point of bringing Parker up at all?" Her voice is acid pouring into open wounds he'd already forgotten about. Wounds of her making, running myriad across his skin like the bulletholes that still litter the walls of her place. The act of her fingers tapping against the thermos in a steady staccato rhythm knocks the wind from his lungs. He knows that sound. Tap. _Shot._ Tap. _Shot._ Tap. _Shot._ He's screwed. So. Fucking. _Dead._ "Why are you even here, Frank?"

"I want in," he says, then, and curses the day he met her.

*****

She can sit almost perfectly still for hours as long as she's got coffee and drive. He thinks he's going to suffocate on the air that hangs around her when every small shift of her slender frame brings forth the smell of honey and cherries. She's barely talking, but the softness of her voice when she does leaves a tremble in his fingers that's akin to a cold trigger against his skin. He knows her eyes stray to him every five minutes or so. He pretends not to see the questions in her eyes. Pretends he doesn't see her looking at him like she's not sure what to make of him. He doesn't know what to make of himself, either, so he supposes that he has no answers for her anyway.

This is the second night they sit in this car and pretend to blend into the cityscape of easily forgotten faces. The docks hadn't turned up anything the night before. He thinks it's going to be a cold day in New York before Parker dares to associate himself with the activity around there again. The man's clever enough to know that some journalists don't lose the scent of a story. He's not clever enough to know that Karen Page was a killer before she was ever a storychaser. The certainty of her being has settled in around Frank too readily to be anything but. He _knows_ people like her. Circumstances knock 'em down. They always, always get back up. Scramble for the nearest weapon to wield, run toward the brawl instead of away toward the safety of approaching sirens, wash the blood off their hands methodically and pray the next time doesn't come knocking.

He's her next time. And the time after that, too. And then also the time after that. There's just that sort of gravity to her. She's that kind of bulletproof.

"How much longer do you think we're going to have to wait?" She asks the question when they're about four hours into the stakeout and he can hardly feel his legs. Seems to ponder it as it hangs in the air between them. "We don't even know if Parker uses this location."

"Your reporter friend seemed to think he did."

"I _hate_ using Trish for this." The corners of her mouth tug downward in disapproval. "She's going to figure out where the information she gives me goes. What am I going to say then?"

"That I'm a far better shot than Jessica."

She scoffs out a noise that's midway between amusement and annoyance. Doesn't refute the argument when it's always been _one shot one kill_ for him. He knows she uses more shots. Not because she doesn't aim right. Not because the first shot doesn't kill.

Karen Page needs to be sure of death.

*****

He respects her certainty even when she's bleeding all over the car's upholstery and the pallor of her skin reflects the pale light of the moon. He keeps one hand pressed to her side to stem the flow before he gets her safe. Steers with the other hand and slams down on the gas pedal now that he's regained his internal footing long enough to register how to drive. What they left behind isn't pretty. He curses curiosity with every breath he huffs out. Pretends that he doesn't hear her whisper of apology amid the pounding rush of his own blood thumping through his ears.

She'd only wanted to get a closer look. Binoculars can only take one so far in the streaming rain and night skies, after all. She'd been out of the car before he could even blink. That's not really when shit went to hell, though he's going to make a point of childlocking the goddamn door next time. He's already taken into consideration that there's going to be a next time even when her hair is streaked like a red sun rising and her lips tremble with the sharp hisses of pain that escape her lungs. Her hand finds the part of her skin he's pressing down on with all his might. Her smaller hand covers his own with insistence. He retracts, knowing this is the way she licks her wounds after battle. Watches as her hand presses down on her side with far more force than he used. His hand finds her hair and taints it even darker red until it runs almost as black as the air that shrouds them in anonymity.

He's not a praying kind of man. He deals in certainties and absolutes. He doesn't like how his heart is halfway into his throat before he can draw breath. Hates the way his fingers curl around a stray lock of her hair and tug on it gently to keep her in the moment with him. Hates how he can barely drive because his eyes are swimming in the unspoken regret that's always been full of the woman he's trying to save.

"Stay with me," he warns her. Deliberately jolts her back to reality with the same words he used earlier that night right before shit hit the fan. Belatedly adds in a gruff caress that's never her name but always perfectly _her_ all the same. "Ma'am."

He's not sure just when she summoned the strength with which to shoot him a smile, but the corners of her mouth curve a little too dangerously and far too self-satisfied to be born of pain alone. The light of the city catches her eyes in a flicker and a flash. He's not sure he likes the force of the gleam that uncurls inside of them and settles to land somewhere deep in her damaged and broken skin. Knows he doesn't like it when she whispers out a "we got him" that's victory and elation rolled into one. Wonders, not for the first time, what made her this way.

Wonders if it's too late to burn the bridge that keeps him crossing back to her.

*****

They are both alone.

That's the way of it when life throws curveball after curveball. That's the shape of things when one is a fugitive and the other is the city's latest golden child. He doesn't need Red to tell him that he needs to shake her loose before she's pulled down under with him. Doesn't need the Devil's accusations that all he's trying to do is bring back his wife. Almost unleashes hell when he mentions Elektra's ascent to something darker and dangerous and altogether unsteady -- though, he thinks, maybe Red needs the reminder of a loss so deep it cuts you with a thousand blades and burns you from the inside out. He doesn't pity the Devil. Doesn't pity the fact that the man's one shot is never once followed by a kill. Frank walks away. Always.

The roll of fate's dice always leads him back to one doorstep.

He sits with her in solitude when the noise of the city begins to fade. His fingers curl around the scrapes of the war she wages against her own conscience. He holds on as tightly as he dares to this island that's not of his own making. Holds on even when he swears up and down that the red hasn't faded from her hair and her eyes are hard enough to withstand a glacier. Folds himself into the cold open spaces of her life, merging with the shadows in her room until the light catches only her. He barely fits.

She doesn't need to tell him he's enough.

He's not sure what her dreams are, if they are anything at all. Perhaps they are just faceless whispers in the dark that make her sit up with a gasp before she heaves and purges in quiet rebellion against the terror that threatens to lay claim on her. He thinks they probably don't burn the way his do. She doesn't seem like the type to watch it all go up in flame. No, Karen Page is a tall order of ice on a sunny day that could tumble ships upside down in the dead waters of tragedy. Still, he reaches for her night after night when his skin prickles with the heat of his life catching fire and her touch is cool winter frost against the windowpane of his one-time living room. Still, he pretends he doesn't hear her muffled sobs in the creases of his shirt as hot tears leak out of the corners of his own eyes.

He gives her dignity in the times they are alone enough to disarm. Presses one kiss to her forehead when the night vanishes and her breath graces the morning that dawns on his skin. Prays that it will continue to be enough.

Waits for her to walk away.


End file.
